NURS FPX 4050 Assessment 2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
Student Name
Capella University
NURS-FPX 4050 Coord Patient-Centered Care
Prof. Name
Date
Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
Hello and Welcome, everyone. I am _______, a care coordinator. Today, I am honoured to speak with the American Cancer Society, a remarkable organization that supports cancer patients and their families and advocates for policies that enhance cancer care.
Caring coordination issues are important to be discussed, considering ethical and policy issues relevant to cancer care. For instance, laws like the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has currently replaced common health reforms, affect the type of health care delivery, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) created a guideline for patient privacy and care provision reforms. As nurses, we are always in a central position to deal with such policies and follow the ethics of enhancing patients’ lives. During this presentation, the participants will learn about key issues and ethical issues affecting cancer care coordination and policy implications to inform the American Cancer Society’s mission efforts and improve the continuum of care for individuals with cancers.
Governmental Policies’ Effect on Care Coordination
Cancer is among the most prevalent diseases affecting people’s health and leading to their deaths, and new cases are being diagnosed every year. According to the American Cancer Society 2024 fact sheet, we know that there are expected more than two million cases in which males can have prostate cancer as the leading type (29%) and breast cancer (32%) in females. However, the expected death rate is 611,720, where among men, lung cancer will be the top cause of cancer-related deaths for men (20%) and women (21%) (American Cancer Society, 2024). Apart from physical effects, cancer has psychosocial nexus and financial consequences.
The patients have stress, anxiety, and depression, and their families have challenges in catering to patients. Cancer treatment is generally expensive to patients and families and is ranked among the most expensive treatments in the healthcare sector, thus hindering access to treatment due to high costs. A lot of patients and families go without insurance or inadequate insurance, facing the burden of co-payments and loss of productivity, intensifying the burden (Noorulain et al., 2022).
The challenges require enhancing the need for governmental policies; for instance, the ACA enhances the availability of cancer screening and treatment by extending insurance and the HIPAA protects patient privacy. The American Cancer Society can leverage these policies to support patient rights and equality in healthcare and develop assistance networks for cancer patients and their families. With awareness of such policies, nurses can keep cancer care coordination effective, ethical, and patient-oriented.
Specific Policies Affecting Care Coordination for Cancer Patients
Government policies significantly impact care coordination for cancer patients by addressing access, affordability, and quality of care. The American Cancer Society can advocate for these policies by raising awareness, promoting preventive care programs, and encouraging research and innovation, ultimately fostering better patient outcomes.
Increased insurance by the ACA is a crucial part of care coordination systems that enhance cancer treatment in America. It promptly provides adequate protection for critical cancer services, encompassing diagnosis, prevention, and treatment services. Also, the ACA excludes pre-existing conditions, which would benefit cancer patients who struggle with expensive health services. It will alleviate financial burdens for patients requiring costly cancer treatments by limiting out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs.
Early detection and intervention would ease and enhance the treatment processes, bringing down the death toll from this deadly disease (Levine et al., 2022). HIPAA establishes standards for controlling the use and disclosure of patients’ information. So, for cancer patients, this guarantees that all information concerning the diagnosis and the treatment remains private and builds confidence in the healthcare system. In this direction, HIPAA ensures that ethical requirements are recognized so that patients are as willing to share their information with their healthcare team, a significant principle for total and patient-centred cancer care (Singh et al., 2024).
NURS FPX 4050 Assessment 2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
The National Cancer Act (NCA), passed in 1971, has been useful in fostering research, education, and cancer treatment. Working to support coordination in cancer care, the act subsidizes the development of specialized cancer centres and promotes network connections. These activities make it possible to translate research findings into direct practice so that patients receive the best solutions for cancer (National Cancer Institute, 2024). The American Cancer Society has and can further strengthen the use of these advancements to raise the standards of support and resources offered to patients in general care.
The Cancer Moonshot Initiative is a plan to enhance the pace of change in cancer research and increase people’s access to new and innovative treatments. This initiative increases access to and opportunities for care by funding unique clinical trials and technologies while promoting a more cooperative approach to interdisciplinary patient care (Minasian et al., 2022). Nurses are an important part of this process, explaining new possibilities and linking new forms of therapy to patients’ plans.
Ethical Questions or Dilemmas for Care Coordination
Cancer care policies at national, state, and local levels profoundly influence care coordination, raising significant ethical questions. The policies highlight critical ethical concerns, including disparities in access, patient autonomy, and resource distribution, emphasizing the importance of thoughtful, patient-centred approaches to ensuring equitable and effective cancer care coordination.
National Policy:
ACA and HIPAA are crucial in the context of ethical concerns that affect cancer care coordination. The ACA increases the population with access to insurance and cloaks some preventive health services. Still, it has several rationales for allocating resources and ways of tackling the problem of controlling costs and possible excesses, which were well elaborated. Lower reimbursement to providers for the treatment of uninsured or underinsured individuals puts a heavy financial burden (Levine et al., 2022). It is highlighted due to questions about the quality of care provision between people experiencing poverty and the rest of the populace. HIPAA, designed to protect the identification of patients, interferes with the important sharing of patients’ health information among caregivers (Singh et al., 2024). Such measures and a reasonable level of privacy achieved here can contribute to tardiness or mistakes interfering with treatment coordination and patient safety.
State Policy:
Cancer drug parity laws in various states mandate equal insurance coverage for oral and intravenous chemotherapy, addressing financial inequities in cancer treatment. However, these laws raise ethical concerns about broader treatment access. While they improve affordability and access for chemotherapy patients, they may inadvertently create imbalances by not equally addressing other costly, innovative treatments (Spargo et al., 2021). This raises questions about the fairness of prioritizing one type of treatment over others, potentially disadvantaging patients requiring non-chemotherapy options. The ethical dilemma lies in ensuring comprehensive equity in coverage across all cancer therapies while managing the financial constraints of insurers and healthcare systems. These laws highlight the challenges of balancing targeted improvements with the broader need for equitable access to diverse, high-quality cancer treatments.
Local Policy:
Cancer screening programs and hospital charity care policies are concerned with important local healthcare issues, but they also have ethical issues. Screening initiatives tend to approach the most common forms of cancer, such as breast cancer or colon cancer, because resources are scarce, leaving those with rare and lethal forms of cancer with no hope. This raises the issue of ethicality in formulating and implementing public health policies in society. Likewise, hospital charities care for untold uninsured or underinsured patients, often only after subjecting them to demanding financial interrogations (Levinson et al., 2022). This leads to ethical questions about individual versus corporate responsibility in resource allocation decisions, patient density, and self-determination. From the two policies, pressing questions are how to increase access and accommodate people with limitations, how to share scarcity of resources with stakeholders fairly, and how to be transparent regarding funding and interventions.
Impact of the Code of Ethics for Nurses
The ANA Code of Ethics offers a valuable guide when nursing care is coordinated for cancer patients to reduce ethically questionable planning that many vulnerable cancer patients can face. The interaction highlights self-regulation, respect for autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence as key values that help nurses reduce inequities and provide high-quality patient-centred care along a continuum of diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship (Haddad & Geiger, 2023). One code provision focuses on patient self-authorization, which can be greatly beneficial to cancer patients who need to navigate through numerous difficult treatment choices and logistical issues.
For example, nurses may promote appropriate access to chemotherapy or clinical trials and manage and support the preferred modality of care coordination that honours culture and diversity. It can help mitigate the SDOH disparities, transportation, and lack of health literacy, which can impact cancer care, and nurses work hard to minimize or even eliminate barriers. Inter-professional teamwork, the other cardinal of the Code, is especially important given that cancer is treated in many specialities.
NURS FPX 4050 Assessment 2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
Oncology nurses must be teaching patients how to prepare for significant transitions in their care – from the hospital to home or from the hospital to hospice – partly. This is so because oncologists often lack awareness of the need for timely and effective transitions. This eliminates the chance of poor coordination and multiple referrals as frequent in oncology practice. Justice, as outlined in the ANA Code, requires nurses to address inequities in cancer care access, particularly for underserved populations.
For instance, patients from low-income or rural backgrounds may struggle to afford or access advanced treatments. Nurses can lead initiatives to connect these patients with resources such as hospital charity programs or community-based support groups, advocating for policy changes that promote health equity (Haddad & Geiger, 2023). The Code also supports the ethical use of health information, essential in cancer care coordination. Protecting patient confidentiality under HIPAA is crucial, but nurses must facilitate effective communication across care teams to ensure optimal outcomes. For example, guaranteeing accurate diagnostic and treatment information is shared promptly helps prevent errors and supports informed decision-making. The American Cancer Society can leverage by coordinating with nurses care coordination for cancer patients, empowering nurses to address the SDOH and mitigate health disparities by providing ethically sound, holistic care which
Conclusion
In conclusion, to identify the key aspects of coordinating the care for cancer patients, we must know the ethical and policy restraints concerning accessibility and cost of health care and quality of service. Besides following the ANA Code of Ethics, healthcare professionals can eliminate disparities, uphold rights, and cultivate patient-centred care using statutes such as ACA, HIPAA, and the Cancer Moonshot Initiative. Highlighting based on the pivotal roles of nurses found advocates and coordinators should ensure patient engagement, equality, and access in multisectoral collaboration. Altogether, it is possible to go on carrying out the efforts to create a more favourable and efficient caregiver chain for patients with cancer. Thank you.
References
American Cancer Society. (2024). Cancer facts & figures 2024. Www.cancer.org. https://www.cancer.org/research/cancer-facts-statistics/all-cancer-facts-figures/2024-cancer-facts-figures.html
Haddad, L. M., & Geiger, R. A. (2023, August 14). Nursing ethical considerations. National Library of Medicine; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526054/
Levine, D. M., Chalasani, R., Linder, J. A., & Landon, B. E. (2022). Association of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with ambulatory quality, patient experience, utilization, and cost, 2014-2016. JAMA Network Open, 5(6), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.18167
Levinson, Z., Hulver, S., & Neuman, T. (2022, November 3). Hospital charity care: How it works and why it matters. KFF. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/hospital-charity-care-how-it-works-and-why-it-matters/
NURS FPX 4050 Assessment 2 Ethical and Policy Factors in Care Coordination
Minasian, L. M., Adhikari, B. B., Dimond, E. P., Shelburne, N., Shi, S., & Desvigne-Nickens, P. (2022). The Impact of the Cancer Moonshot on cardio-oncology Science. JACC. CardioOncology, 4(3), 413–416. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaccao.2022.08.004
National Cancer Institute. (2024, December). National Cancer Act of 1971. Www.cancer.gov. https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/overview/history/national-cancer-act-1971
Noorulain, F., Kuan, W.-C., Kong, Y.-C., Bustamam, R. S., Wong, L.-P., Subramaniam, S., Ho, G.-F., Zaharah, H., Yip, C.-H., & Bhoo-Pathy, N. (2022). Cancer-related costs, the resulting financial impact and coping strategies among cancer survivors living in a setting with a pluralistic health system: A qualitative study. Ecancermedicalscience, 16, 1449. https://doi.org/10.3332/ecancer.2022.1449
Singh, A. P., Balogh, E. P., Carlson, R. W., Huizinga, M. M., Malin, B. A., Melamed, A., Meropol, N. J., Pisano, E. D., Winn, R. A., K. Robin Yabroff, & Shulman, L. N. (2024). Re-envisioning electronic health records to optimize patient-centered cancer care, quality, surveillance, and research. JCO Oncology Practice. https://doi.org/10.1200/op.24.00260
Spargo, A., Yost, C., Squires, P., Raju, A., Schroader, B., & Brown, J. D. (2021). The effects of oral anticancer parity laws on out-of-pocket spending and adherence among commercially insured patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, 27(5), 554–564. https://doi.org/10.18553/jmcp.2021.27.5.554